In the Amazon Rain Forests of South America grows a remarkable SUPER FRUIT. The Theobroma grandiflorum tree produces a fruit called the Cupuaçu(coo-poo-wa-soo). The Cupuaçu fruits are big oblong, fuzzy and brown, weighing 2 to 4 pounds with a hard covering. It is popular in South America as a sweet treat and the seeds make a wonderful butter with remarkable skin repair properties.

We spend a lot of time studying ingredients. We are constantly looking for undiscovered or little used ingredients that will benefit our customers. That is our niche. Hardly a week goes by we don’t get asked for a Butter for face and especially for the body. Something heavier to relieve severe dryness.

Butters are oils that come to us in the form of a solid. Most of the oils we use in this product are butters. But mostly the primary ingredient is Cupuaçu. Since the primary ingredient is Cupuaçu that is mostly what this product smells like. Most products that use Cupuaçu use it only as a minor ingredient. Keep in mind it is completely legal to add one drop of an ingredient and name the product after that ingredient.

Cupuaçu (coo-poo-wa-soo) is a fruit that is extremely popular in South America. They make sweet treats out of the fruit and it is used in flavorings. The seeds are used to make butter for skin care products. The smell and taste are pretty much unknown in the USA. It is a hard to describe scent. Sort of like Chocolate. In fact, the tree is a relative of cacao tree from which we get chocolate. Many have compared the smell and taste to that of bananas, melons, passion fruit, pineapples, pears and even nutella.

You might be wondering how to actually pronounce Cupuacu or Cupuaçu (notice the “ç” which sounds like an unvoiced /s/). The consensus is a variation of the following: “koo-poo-ah-su”, “coo-poo-wa-soo”, or “coo-pwah-soo”. Unless you’re Brazilian and speak Brazilian stylized Portuguese, it probably doesn’t matter much. If it helps, you can also opt for the phonetically friendly “Copuasu” or “Cupuassu”, both of which are helpful variation of the spelling. Regardless of your pronunciation, you will quickly recognize this funny sounding superfruit.

So does this moisturizer sit on the skin’s surface? Nope. It still absorbs into the skin, just below the skin’ surface where it can do the most good. Good? Delivering important nutrients into the skin. Almost all moisturizers out there use ingredients of little value to the skin. Extracts sound good, but there seems to be an over-reliance on them in most skin care products. We’ve tested a lot of extracts on the market and find them lacking. Often so weak as to be useless. If we use an extract we usually extract it ourselves, so we know what we are getting.

Now keep in mind it is legal in this country to put one drop of an ingredient into a product and name it after that ingredient. WE DON’T EVER DO THAT. It might be legal, but it isn’t moral. Besides in our mind if a product works we will get reorders. Cupuaçu is THE primary ingredient.

What is it known for? Elasticity and hydration.

Why is this important? Without skin elasticity, even a young person would appear old. Same goes for hydration. Skin that can’t hold in water content will appear aged.

So why not just buy Cupuaçu butter and smear it on the skin? Won’t work. For a butter or oil to absorb into the skin it has to be in a true moisturizer.

So what is a true moisturizer? We make true moisturizers. Making a true moisturizer is an ‘olde world’ art that was almost lost to history. It took many years of research to resurrect this artisan method. It involves mixing waxes (we use vegetable waxes) and oils/butters and water at a specific temperatures. Too high a temperature and it bruises or destroys the oils/butters. Now before I go into how most moisturizers are made today, let me explain, we use raw or virgin oils and butters. We also use Reverse Osmosis purified water. The gold standard of water. Every product is made in small batches of a few hundred bottles and shipped fresh.

So what are most moisturizers? Thickened oils/butters. Or worse yet, thickened chemicals for oil free products. If you see xanthan gum or algin or sea weed in the ingredients, those are thickeners. Yes they look like real moisturizers. But they don’t act like true moisturizers. They are easy and cheap to make.

Ingredients in order of prominence.

Reverse Osmosis Purified Water: virtually all skin care products ‘say’ they use purified water. But the real deal is reverse osmosis purified water. This mean ZERO contaminants which means the starting point is pure. It’s expensive to do (goes through 5 filters, which have to be changed often), but it is the only water we use. We use the waste water from this purifying process to water our flowers and landscaping. So there is no waste. Don’t some products use distilled water? Yes but distilled water is expensive to make (heat is used to boil the dirty water and stream is collected). the problem we have with distilled water is it has a lower pH due to the extra ions added during the process. We prefer to work with pH neutral water. To me there is no more perfect water than R-O water. I remember the 1st time we made soap with it. As we poured the soap is was so creamy! It looked like home made ice cream right before it gets solid. It’s one of our special secrets to how good our products are.

Emulsifying wax: This is a vegetable wax that is used to combine the oils and water.

Cocoa Butter: (Theobroma Cacao) Cocoa Butter helps to make this butter thick more like a butter.

Jojoba Oil: (Simmondsia chinensis): is very similar to the oils in our skin. Technically it is not an oil but a wax ester. If you apply it to your skin it still won’t absorb, but in a cream/moisturizer it absorbs extremely fast into the skin. We use this oil to carry the other butters into the skin. Jojoba is the workhorse.

Babassu: (orbignya oleifera seed oil) Babassu is a big palm tree about 20 meters high native to Brazil. It is extensively cultivated and presents a very important industrial and economical resource for Brazil. Its principal product is a rather stable, light yellow, clear oil which is employed in food, and soap industries. Babassu oil is cold pressed from the kernel which contains about 72% lipids (in weight) and is ultra-refined with out chemicals.

Glycerin (vegetable). What skin care product doesn’t benefit from Glycerin? Problem is most store bought and even high end moisturizers use animal derived Glycerin. You don’t even want to know how they make this glycerin. Unless the label specifically says vegetable it is almost always animal derived. Yuck!

Stearic acid: is not an acid, but another vegetable wax. Adds creaminess.

Cetyl Stearyl Alcohol (vegetable) this is a waxy vegetable ingredient used to give the moisturizers a bit of heft and contact feel.

Germall Plus (4/10’s of 1%) (diazolidinyl Urea, 3-Iodo-2-propylbutylcarbarmate) (a vegetable derived preservative to keep our product fresh) only needs 4/10’s of one percent to keep our product safe. Look before you ask, no totally natural preservative really protects products from bacteria. We don’t like using Parabens. and since we pH balance our moisturizers we are limited in our choice of preservatives. What’s great about this one is so little is needed to afford protection.

Natural Essential oils: Truthfully, we do put in a variety of essential oils but they are not the prominent scent.

Best if used within one year of receipt. I’ll bet no skin care product you have bought from a store was made within the last year. Most of the products were made years ago. We find we can better control our quality if we make products as they are used. Fresh just makes for better skin care products. Our families all use our products. We only sell what we would use. pH neutral: And why is this important? Although we use ingredients that have an acid pH, the finished moisturizer is pH neutral, like all of our moisturizers. We believe the skin is actually stressed by acids. Virtually all moisturizers on the market are acid. We wondered why? If acids are so good for the skin as these products claim, why does it feel so good to take a swim in the ocean? Ocean water pH is very much the opposite of acid. Slightly alkaline. Why is it recommended to keep swimming pool water slightly alkaline? There is a whole line of thinking now that promotes alkalines. We believe the skin and all of nature loves alkaline and hates acids. If the ocean were to all of a sudden become slightly acid, mostly it would be a dead body of water. Forget this nonsense of the ‘acid mantle’. Our bodies when healthy, are pH neutral to slightly alkaline. No animal ingredients or testing EVER! We also get assurances from our suppliers that all of our raw ingredients are not animal derived or any animal testing done there either. Most skin care products you buy to use today, were made in large factories years ago and have been in storage. Everything we ship was made in small batches within a few weeks of shipping. Fresh matters! Quality ingredients matter! Most of our ingredients are as close to natural as possible. We avoid overly processed ingredients. Processing means heat and that destroys the goodness in these precious ingredients we use.

I used this moisturizer on my face until Steve pulled more tricks out of his sleeves with the anti-aging serums but you cant go wrong here! I've grown up with Steve's products since he began selling on ebay in 99 I believe... not sure I old but definitely not crusty! Now and he's always coming up with great products. He sends his magic soap with it which will change your life. Cheers!

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Love, love, love!

February 27, 2020

Reviewer:
JessicaS from Colorado

If I had to choose, this is probably my favorite moisturizer to use. It’s heavy but absorbs very well and quick. I use this as an all over lotion and also apply to my face and neck. I have acne prone skin and this never causes break-outs. Good enough for winter in Colorado, which is very dry with low humidity. Soft natural scent but I adore it!

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

My favorite

September 27, 2019

Reviewer:
Sabrina from Washington

Soaks in well, lasting hydration. It soothes, and causes no irritation to my sensitive skin. I use this daily on the body. It is a staple in our house. I do not use this on break out prone areas. I use The Prickly Pear moisturizer and the Daytime Moisturizer for Acne Prone Skin on my face. Keep unused bottles in the fridge for freshness. Highly recommend!

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Love this stuff!

June 13, 2019

Reviewer:
Lydonna from OR United States

I can't stop petting myself! I'm so soft lol ðŸ˜†. I have to go out in the sun without sunscreen for vitamin D so I use it every day. Soooo happy!